Brooklyn, NYC

 

 Park Slope

My Family and I spent the Thanksgiving holiday in Brooklyn. A couple decades ago I attended college at Pratt Institute. While I was a student I worked at Helene von Rosenstiel in the then unremarkable neighborhood of Park Slope. We heard rumors people were starting to talk about moving there, but most of us didn’t believe it.

My job was restoring antique costumes and textiles for private collectors, Sotheby’s auction house, and museums across the country. I once helped to prepare the sequins to be sewn on a pair of ruby slippers from the original Wizard of Oz movie. To restore old quilts, we often mounted them to stretchers, similar to a canvas used for painting. We built the frames ourselves, which required supplies.

One day the manager sent me down the street to the local hardware store. I gathered the nails and other supplies and went to the counter.

Asked the guy, “Do you want me to put this stuff on your tab?”

I looked around the otherwise empty store. He had to be talking to me.

 

“Wait a minute,” I said. “I’m standing here in a city of eight million people. You’ve never seen me before and you’re going to let me put this on a tab? How do you even know where I work?”

(If you ever want to feel like a true New Yorker, you must obey rule number one, which is to always get into an argument with the clerk behind the counter, no matter how trivial the debate.)

 

 

He replied, “I know you have to work at Helene’s. Nobody else ever comes in here looking like you guys. So, do you want this on the company account?”

I said yes and left without having to show ID or pay.

 

 

While in the past couple decades quite a bit has changed—soaring property values, upscale restaurants and fancy boutiques—other things remain classic New York. We rented a VRBO apartment for our vacation in Park Slope. To get the keys we stopped by the corner deli to ask the guy behind the counter for an envelope. Upon leaving, we returned them to the deli. I wouldn’t have a set of keys floating around strangers where I live, but it seems to work in Brooklyn.

View the slideshow of photo illustrations of Park Slope.